The author of the Sefer HaChinuch (Book of Education), in his discussion on the commandment of putting on Tefillin, wrote that “The matters in these four portions (written in the Tefillin) are more significant than the portions of the Torah as these portions contain the acceptance of G-d and the concept of G-d’s unity. As well, the Tefillin contain the subject of the exodus from Egypt which compels belief G-d runs the world and is directly involved in our lives, and these are the foundations of ...[Read more]
The author of the Sefer HaChinuch (Book of Education), in his discussion on the commandment of putting on Tefillin, wrote that “The matters in these four portions (written in the Tefillin) are more significant than the portions of the Torah as these portions contain the acceptance of G-d and the concept of G-d’s unity. As well, the Tefillin contain the subject of the exodus from Egypt which compels belief G-d runs the world and is directly involved in our lives, and these are the foundations of Judaism.”
While the Jews were incarcerated in concentration camps, these verses held a special significance. The Jews were not only in a time of need in terms of their general faith, but also with respect to the faith that G-d had direct involvement in their lives, as the Sefer HaChinuch (The Book of Education) noted. In spite of their horrifying circumstances which could weaken their belief in G-d’s reign over them, the commandment of tefillin came to strengthen them. By means of tying the tefillin to one’s head and arm, they connected themselves to their creator. The tying of the tefillin symbolized that they would not leave their faith no matter what.
Before you is a collection of testimonies, from Ganzach Kiddush Hashem’s testimony database, telling the story of Jews who did not cave in to evil circumstances and strove, out of self-sacrifice, even partially, to put on tefillin in the harsh conditions of the concentration camps. This strengthened their faith and trust in G-d.
The Tiny Secret Tefillin
Clip from the film “Keeping the Connection” in conjunction with Jerusalem College
Praying in Marysin, Lodz Ghetto
Avraham Yaakov Frisch – Putting on Tefillin for the First Time in Budapest (Hajdunanas, Hungary)
Nazis abusing a Jew wrapped in tefillin and a tallis in Olkusz, Poland
Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Gibraltar - "And They Will Be a Sign"
Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Gibraltar - "And They Will Be a Sign"
It was during the days of the Great Aktion (roundup) organized by Rauca, the chief butcher. The 7th of MarCheshvan 5702 (October 28th, 1941), the evening before the aktion, was a real Yom Kippur Eve for us! I went to ask my father: "This night is the last of our lives, I want the right to put on a tefillin!" I was about twelve and three months old. Father agreed and said: "Tomorrow morning you will put on tefillin." At six in the morning, he had to report to the square. In the morning when it was still dark, father looked to the sky and said: Now you can put on tefillin...
I put on tefillin for the first time! But there wasn't even time to recite the first paragraph of the Shema prayer for my father had to report to the square.
To get a taste on the last day of life of the merit of putting on tefillin.
(Testimony of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Gibraltar, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem Archive)
Yehuda Wallis - Tefillin: To Die for Them
Yehuda Wallis - Tefillin: To Die for Them
Rabbi Yosef Wallis, the CEO of "Arachim," tells the story of his father, Yehuda Wallis, born and raised in Pabianice, Poland.
While he was in Dachau, a Jew, who was being taken to his death, suddenly threw a small bag at him. He grabbed the bag, and thought that there might be a slice of bread in it… but when he opened it, he was startled to find a pair of tefillin inside. Yehuda was very afraid, because he knew that if they caught him wearing tefillin, they would kill him immediately. So he hid the tefillin under his shirt and went to his barrack in the camp. In the morning he put on the tefillin while he was still in his barrack. Unexpectedly, a German officer appeared, read the number on Yehuda's arm, and ordered him to present himself. In the presence of thousands of silent Jews, the officer read Yehuda's number; Yehuda had no choice, he had to go. The German officer waved the tefillin in the air and said:
"Dog, I am sentenced you to death by public hanging because of the tefillin you had on." They stood him on the stool and hung the noose around his neck. Before hanging him, the officer asked in a mocking voice, "Dog, what is your last request?" He replied "to put on my tefillin for the last time". The officer was stunned, and handed Yehuda the tefillin. And when he placed them, he said the verses that are said when putting them on, "And I bequeath you to me forever" etc. It is hard for us to imagine this Jew, with a noose around his neck, and the tefillin on his head and arm. But it was the spectacle that the whole camp was forced to watch, the hanging of the Jew who dared to disobey the order to put on tefillin. Even women from the neighboring camp, stood by the fence that separated them from the men's camp, and were forced to see this horrific spectacle.
When Yehuda watched the silent masses, he saw many tears amongst them. At the exact moment when he was supposed to be murdered, he was shocked that Jews were crying! How could they have any tears left to shed? And for a stranger? Where did these tears come from? Impulsively he called loudly in Yiddish: "Jews, don't cry! When the tefillin are on me, I am the winner!" The German officer understood the Yiddish and was very angry. He said to Yehuda, "Dog, do you think you won? Hanging is too good for you, you will accept death in another way."
Yehuda, my father, was taken off the stool and the noose was removed from his neck. He was forced to bend down, and two huge rocks were placed under his arms. And they told him that he would receive 25 blows on his head for daring to put tefillin on. And if he dropped even one of the rocks, he would be shot immediately. Since this was such a painful form of death, the officer told him: "Drop the rock now, you won't survive anyway, no one survives this." Yehuda replied: "No, I don't want to give you the pleasure." Upon the 25th blow, Yehuda lost consciousness and he was left for dead in the field. They were going to carry him to a pile of corpses, then burn him in a pit… At that moment, another Jew saw him, dragged him aside, and covered him with a rag, so that they wouldn't notice that he was alive. After a while, he regained consciousness and crawled to a barrack that was elevated. He hid underneath it until he was strong enough to go out on his own. Two months later, he was released.
Rabbi David Brudman – The Last Days in Theresienstadt (The Hague, Holland)
Youth in Marysin, Lodz Ghetto
Shlomo Aryeh Barber – Tefillin in the Labour Camp (Chrzanow, Galicia)
Workers in the leather workshop, with tefillin that remained after deportations from the Lodz Ghetto
Reading from the Torah in the synagogue at 21 Zgierska Street in the Lodz Ghetto
Shmuel Grossman, in bed and wrapped in his tallis and tefillin, in the Lodz Ghetto
Yehoshua Landau – Escape Attempts (Brzesko, Galicia)
Praying in the Lodz Ghetto
Yitzchak Rosmarin – Self-sacrifice for the Commandments (Krasnosielc, Poland)
Tefillin from the Warsaw Ghetto
Youth praying while wearing tefillin in the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania
Yitzchak Rosmarin – A Special Bar Mitzvah (Krasnosielc, Poland)
Rabbi Yechiel Teitelbaum, the rabbi of the city of Kolbuszowa, Poland, forced to pose for a picture wrapped in his tallis and tefillin in the courtyard of his home
Putting on Tefillin in Auschwitz
Putting on Tefillin in Auschwitz
If until now, in the previous camps, prayer involved a lot of effort, now it was even more difficult to pray, since it was impossible to pray while walking to work, and in the barracks it was very difficult to pray without anyone noticing it. And yet, precisely here, I remember that I managed once to put on tefillin!
It was on a Sunday when we did not go to work. A Jew came to the barrack and told us that a Jewish Hungarian group arrived to the camp, amongst them a rabbi. In a whisper, the man told us an additional detail that thanks to a bribe given to the blockalteste and the kapo (Jewish policemen), the Hungarian rabbi was able to bring a pair of tefillin into the camp, and anyone who wanted to use the tefillin, could come and wear them. I quickly got up and ran to the barrack where the Hungarians lived. I found the rabbi, who stood out form the others, and requested with tears in my eyes for him to allow me to put on the tefillin. He handed me the tefillin with trembling hands. My excitement was mixed with anxiety and fear, as praying in the camp was punishable by death. Tefillin? There is no appropriate punishment for this offense… and yet, the tefillin were wrapped around my head and arm… I only had time to recite the Shema with the tefillin, and then they were taken from my head and arm. Additional Jews also wanted to earn a mitzvah, which was not at all common in the camp…At the exact moment when I felt the tefillin on me, the one and only time, it left such a strong impression on me that I will never forget. All my thoughts were on the tefillin on my arm, and my eyes were attached to them: the tefillin bear witness to the Holy One, blessed be He, who is unique and special, and who brought us out of Egypt, and who will grant that we would soon be redeemed, even from this place…
(The Candles That Were Not Extinguished - The testimony of the chassidic rabbi, Mordechai Deutscher - Ganzach Kiddush Hashem Publishers)
Times for putting on tefillin in Westerbork. Donated to Ganzach Kiddush Hashem by the Abrahams family.
Yechezkel Shikman – Tefillin in the Labour Camp (Sosnowiec, Poland)
Distribution of tefillin and Torah covers in a displaced persons’ camp postwar
Sylvan (Shlomo Zalman) Brachfeld – My Father’s Spiritual Strength (Antwerp, Belgium)
A Jew praying wrapped in his tallis and tefillin aboard an illegal immigration ship
Jews wrapped in tallises and tefillin praying in a secret synagogue in the Lodz Ghetto
Meir Blum – A Bar Mitzvah Boy in Occupied Hungary (Krakow, Poland)
Nachman Bistritz – Putting on Tefillin (Krasna, Romanian-Hungarian border)
A pile of disgraced tefillin that was gathered in the Lodz Ghetto
Avraham Yaakov Kalisz – The Self-Sacrifice of the Jews for wearing Prayer Shawls and Tefillin (Zilina, Slovakia)
The "Treasure" that Arrived at the Camp
The "Treasure" that Arrived at the Camp
Auschwitz Birkenau, in the days of wrath
At one of the meetings, Rabbi Chaim Toter came with an impressive announcement that tefillin and a siddur had arrived in the camp! With a face beaming with joy, he said that he saw the tefillin, with his very eyes, in the hands of a Lithuanian boy who came to the camp last night. It was hard to believe that such a thing was indeed possible. Who more than us knew how many tests the prisoners go through before they are admitted into the camp. Before entering the shower, he had to take off all his clothing, and he would have been naked like at birth. And woe to him who hid something in the palms of his hands. But Rabbi Chaim jumped up and swore that his words were true, and we were left with no shadow of a doubt, that indeed there is tefillin amongst us.
The first to be enthusiastic about the new news was Rabbi Yoseleh, the Rebbe of Novominsk. He stood up and announced that already tomorrow he must put on the tefillin. We tried to convince the Rebbe against it, to not risk his life. But the Rebbe argued that there is no loss of knowing what happened in Auschwitz, and if he is found doing the mitzvah, he would do it no matter what! After the entreaties and persuasions did not help, we decided to give up drinking the ersatz coffee in the morning and hide the Rebbe while he put on the tefillin.
The next day at the bell, we gathered near the block where the Rebbe was already waiting for the boy who was standing in the corner with his tefillin on his head, praying with emotion. To my surprise, the boy was Leibeleh, son of Feivel of Kovno. Not many days passed, and the boy was caught while performing the mitzvah and taken out of the camp.
(Rabbi Aviezer Borenstein, Remembrance file 7)
Clarification of the story The "Treasure" that Arrived at the Camp was received by Ganzach Kiddush Hashem. The brave boy was miraculously saved and he is Rabbi Aryeh Leib Zisman of the United States. The camp inmates assumed that when he was captured, he had been taken to death, but in fact he was transferred to another camp and with God's help he survived and was able to start an important family. At a meeting with him, we heard the story of the tefillin firsthand, and thus we learned more details about the Divine Providence that accompanied Leibeleh's tefillin.
Before the war broke out, his father bought him a pair of boots that were too big for him. The boy hid the tefillin in the boots. He was taken from the Kovno Ghetto with a group of children to Dachau and from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There they were ordered to undress and shake out their shoes. All the objects that were hidden in the shoes were piled high, and the boy was filled with sorrow for the tefillin that had been taken from him. At a certain moment, he decided to cause a commotion with all the children, then when the guard was distracted, he managed to get the tefillin back into his possession and hide them again in his boots.
He continued to wear these tefillin in Auschwitz and allow others to wear them as well.
(Out of the Depths I Cry Out: The Jews of the Kovno Ghetto Seek Guidance - Ganzach Kiddush Hashem Publishers)
Tzvi Fink – Tefillin in Auschwitz (Poland)
Menachem Haberman – Tefillin in Auschwitz (Munkacs, Czechoslovakia)
In the Merit of Putting on Tefillin
In the Merit of Putting on Tefillin
Through all the years of deportations and wanderings, we stayed together, me and my brother Mendel, who is greater than me in Torah and God-fearingness. We made sure to keep a pair of tefillin in our possession, and even if we were occasionally put through more severe trials, we were still helped by Heaven, and hardly a day passed without us putting on tefillin.
The journey stopped at the Gross-Rosen station. We ran from the train station to the camp in a panic. We did not expect such a reception. We were among the first Jews to arrive at the camp. The personal search was extremely severe, and of course they robbed us of everything, including the pair of tefillin. At the end of the searches, they added a kick to the flow of curses, and thus ended the "acceptance ceremony" as a camp inmate.
The next morning, my brother Mendel woke up and one concern occurred to him: Where will we get tefillin? He went out to search the camp, and discovered a Polish criminal who was in charge of the crematorium and burned all the unnecessary objects confiscated from the Jewish forced laborers. My brother Mendel decided not to eat without putting on tefillin, so he immediately offered his portion of bread to the criminal in exchange for a pair of tefillin.
The Pole agreed, and indeed he brought a package with "pachorek" as he called it (holy objects) which included a small siddur with a pair of tefillin. He took them himself from the floor; they had rolled off a pile of confiscated items. The pair consisted of two tefillin for the arms, though. What did my brother do? He explained to the Pole that he should look for tefillin with two strips of leather and again paid for this trouble with an extra portion of bread, and that's how we got a real set of tefillin.
We managed to find a suitable hiding place in the barrack for the set of tefillin. After two days, the kapos came to conduct a thorough search and did not find the tefillin. Every day about fifty Jews said a blessing on the tefillin. We created a sort of living wall, and behind it the worshipers lined up, like in the moving film method. They put on the tefillin for a moment and had a moment to say the Shema Yisrael prayer.
One time one of the Kapos appeared in front of us and begged to put on the tefillin because he had a yahrzeit (memorial day for a close relative). We couldn't refuse him. He took the tefillin and did not return them. Later, we found out that he had sold the tefillin at a huge price in a neighboring section of the camp. However, a miracle happened, and a new shipment of Jews arrived, including the dear Jew, Rabbi Lipa Leibkowitz of Grosswardein (Oradea, Romania) who brought a pair of tefillin with him.
Not long past and we were sent again to another camp, where there were thousands of Jews from Munkacz and other places. They did not have a single set of tefillin. Their joy was great when we arrived with tefillin. Around five hundred Jews said the blessing on wearing the tefillin each day.
The desire to use the tefillin was so great that we had to divide the pair of tefillin: One group said the blessing for the head tefillin and other other group said the blessing for the arm tefillin. Of course, each blessed only one blessing, because there was no better advice on how to manage the situation. It was better that everyone was able to complete part of the mitzvah instead of only some completing the whole mitzvah, and it was a true elixir of life for us!
I remember a Jew from Munkacz, Rabbi Aharon Weider, who got up early at two in the morning, and would urge me to let him pray with the pair of tefillin. He wanted to pray without interruption, as he wished. But at three o'clock in the morning the long line to put on tefillin had already started, and it continued as usual until half past five, the time of the roll call. My brother and I were the last to report to the roll call. Nevertheless, we made sure to take the pair of tefillin to the workplace, because dozens of Jews took advantage of the short lunch break to put on the tefillin in a hiding place at work.
In this camp, a disaster occured, but it ended happily. The SS officer from the camp guards caught one of us in the middle of putting on a tefillin. He tore it off the worshiper's head, and issued a special order to the blockalteste, that they must perform a "special ceremony" of burning the tefillin in front of the whole camp. What did we do then? We convinced the blockalteste to exchange the pair of tefillin for a "substitute," especially prepared for this purpose. There was a department in the camp - carpenters, we asked them to cut two small wooden cubes and paint them black. Then we tied leather strips to the cubes, which were cut in half, and this was submitted to the "public ceremony of burning the tefillin"…
At one of the stop of the of the journey between camps, my brother Mendel fell ill. His strength was zero, because he was careful to eat only kosher food. My brother was taken to the isolation place for the sick, and he took the tefillin with him. Not only I, but also many others went to him to put on the tefillin. My brother was in great danger, because he was chosen to be sent with the "unnecessary". I volunteered to travel with him, but the Jewish doctor, who was from Holland, laughed at me: "Do you know where they are being taken? To Auschwitz! To the crematoria!"… I knew, but I could not say goodbye to my brother, after we had remained together during all the years of calamity. I begged the doctor to put my name on the shipment list as well, but we were lucky that the shipment was not sent out, because the Auschwitz camp was liberated by the Red Army in the meantime.. All the people in the camp said that the miracle happened to us thanks to the mitzvah of tefillin…
I have no doubt that my brother and I fulfilled this mitzvah. On the last day of the war, May 8th, 1945, a great miracle happened to us. The pair of tefillin was hidden on my brother; in the morning, I approached him to receive the tefillin. I spoke to him, but he lay as if passed out. I pulled his leg and there was no answer. My world had become dark; what should I do? I myself was a "muselmann," to be fair. My legs were swollen and my strength was gone. I was among the gravediggers, and the work was too strenuous. We were a few thousand Jews in the beginning and only about three hundred remained by the end.
Suddenly, I saw the supply cart near me, and something was falling out of it. I rushed to it, and found a great discovery - a piece of sugar! What should I do with it? Will one piece of sugar be enough to save my dying brother? In the process, I encountered one Pole, who was considered a political prisoner and had enough bread. "Would you agree to trade with me?" I offered him a piece of sugar for a few slices of bread! I received the bread and quickly ran to my fainting brother. I put some bread crumbs in his mouth and he recovered and asked to put on the tefillin prior to eating the bread.
The two of us prayed the most meaningful prayers on that day, and it was the last day of the war.
(Moshe Brachtfeld, Krakow - New York, Bais Yaakov Journal, Tishrei 5725/1964)
A bar mitzvah party for one of the children in the orphanage in Bucharest, Romania
Bentzion Weiss – Dying as a Sanctification of G-d’s Name (Neresnica, Czechoslovakia)
